


Transposable elements

by JoCarthage



Series: Long distances and close calls (2020 phone banking accountability fic series) [5]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Diné cultural conversations, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Native American Identity Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27112604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: Michael is growing a goth garden for Alex and has a question for Greg. Post S2.--This is a fic series where, after each day of phone banking for the democratic ticket in the US's 2020 presidential election, I will write a fic that's 10x the number of calls I made. So if I make 14 calls, I write and post a 140 word fic. If you'd like to start phone banking, you can sign-up for a good, comprehensive training here: https://demvolctr.org.A lot of what I'm doing when I talk to US-based voters is helping them figure out what the rules for voting in their state currently are, to help make sure every ballot gets counted. You can find information about that for your state, if you live in the US and can vote, here: http://iwillvote.com
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: Long distances and close calls (2020 phone banking accountability fic series) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970539
Comments: 43
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made 75 calls into Ohio today, for a total of 475 calls so far. For the other people phone banking -- if you are open to sharing your number of calls/texts/postcards (either total, per week, per day) and if my style of writing is your jam, let me know what kind of fic you'd like in the comments or on tumblr (http://jocarthage.tumblr.com) and I'll try to write you a one-shot!  
> \--  
> So, like most folks here who are writers, I tend to process my world through writing, and the conversations about Native American identity we've been having in this fandom (https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/632342187563204608/for-folks-whose-writing-touches-on-mindy-manes-or and https://fantasychica37.tumblr.com/post/632529946878918656/my-5-personal-goal-posts; listen to the interview yourself here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rIoyhzkelo0RUNw_BQ4DYpUxGJZJGoCc/view?usp=sharing  
> ) have finally filtered into my writing. That's why I've tagged this piece "Native American Identity Conversations." My theory of change around social justice issues centers on consent. I think if someone has the privilege of being able to choose whether to engage or not, the best way to involve them and keep them doing the work is to give them a choice. If someone is exhausted by this conversation and has other stuff going on in their lives, I don't want to spring it on them in the midst of a gardening fic.  
> \--  
> The title is from this paper about Barbara McClintock's work on maize genetics, which explains how some corn ends up blue; I was reading it in between calls thanks to a recommendation from a friend: https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/barbara-mcclintock-and-the-discovery-of-jumping-34083/#

Michael ducked into the tiny single-user bathroom at the Santa Fe nursery, pulling out his phone and frantically texting:

> **Michael** : Is it ok for me to plant Navajo Blue Corn?  
>  **Greg** : What?  
>  **Michael** : Is it appropriation for me to plant Navajo Blue Corn? I’m at Plants of the Southwest in Albuquerque and

_And it looks like goth corn and I thought Alex would like it —_

> **Michael** : and I wanted to know if it’s appropriative for a white guy like me to plant it  
>  **Michael** : I know it’s important and used in rituals and

_And I don’t want to give Alex a real, substantive reason to be pissed at me, not when things are going roughly the right direction again_

> **Michael** : and I don’t want to be a shit friend, claiming something that isn’t mine  
>  **Greg** : Did you steal the corn from someone?  
>  **Michael** : No  
>  **Greg** : Are you going to pretend you invented it?  
>  **Michael** : No  
>  **Greg** : Are you going to keep someone else from planting it?  
>  **Michael** : No  
>  **Greg** : Are you going to sell it?  
>  **Michael** : No — it’s for

_The goth vegetable garden I’ve been planting for Alex for 6 weeks and keep telling him is for the project for your students on the rez, that I'm growing enough seeds for them to use in their own school garden; that all of the plants are black or otherwise dramatique is just as a coincidence_

> **Michael** : No, it’s for the garden project.  
>  **Greg** : Thank you again for doing that, the kiddos are really excited to start planting in the spring.  
>  **Greg** : About the Blue Corn -- are you going to make-up fake rituals with it?  
>  **Michael** : No  
>  **Greg** : Are you going to use it to pretend you’re something you’re not?  
>  **Michael** : No  
>  **Greg** : Are you going to use this as a chance to learn more about the parts of Diné culture that people want to share, like food, music, jewelry, weavings, and art?  
>  **Michael** : I was hoping to, if you’re ok sharing  
>  **Greg** : Are you going to use it to share what you learn, with the caveat that you’re not part of the culture and not talking over people who are?  
>  **Michael** : I mean, I talk to you, Iz, Maria, Liz, Max, Alex, and Sanders, and that's about it. But yeah, if they ask about 3 sisters or something, I can share what I know, even if it’s not much  
>  **Greg** : Then it’s not only ok for you to plant it, it is an actively good, productive, helpful ally thing to do.  
>  **Greg** : I know you were probably looking for a quick answer, but imo 9 questions isn’t really that much in the scheme of things, and I figured by laying them out that way, it might help you be able to decide for yourself in the future and not have to, like, phone a friend about it  
>  **Michael** : Aww, but I like bothering you on your lunch break  
>  **Greg** : Actually it’s an in-service day and the world’s most boring online learning educator is currently trying to lull me to sleep with her dulcet tones about how learning styles don't exist, but I’m also ok ghosting you until I have time to respond  
>  **Greg** : and, seriously, it is a good, real, actually good thing that you asked and that you listened.  
>  **Michael** : Do you want some of the corn to eat, or just for the class, if I can get it to grow?  
>  **Greg** : Along with your goth watermelons, ruby chard, and Black Valentine Beans? Hell yeah, Michael, I absolutely do.  
>  **Greg** : Give my best to Alex, ok?  
>  **Michael** : If I see him, sure

Michael bought the seeds, another book by a Diné author on traditional agriculture, and a few other seed packs which he tucked in his pockets. He loaded up the desert-specialized apple trees was picking-up for one of Isobel’s friends. He got 10% of the total price on the trees, plus gas, wear-and-tear, plus money for lunch. He had to pay in cash since they didn't take plastic, but he'd been here before and had enough. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

As he back to Roswell, he thought about how he wanted to plant the corn — rows or circles. He thought about each navy blue kernel could grow a mature stalk in two months, and how each of those plants could produce cobs with 100 - 500 more kernels. He thought about how small things can grow so big, and feed so many, when planted with love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued tomorrow! I think this will have 3 parts.  
> "Cultural appropriation" has a tumblr definition and an academic definition and other definitions. The one I'm using is closest to this one here, which is a bit different from how some folks speak about it online: https://bento.cdn.pbs.org/hostedbento-prod/filer_public/whatihear/9-Cultural_Approp-Viewing_Guide.pdf  
> \--  
> Top quote from today's phone banking:  
> \- Shelly (Ohio): "I'm worried. I can't stand. So I've got to go some place where these Visiting Angels can push me in a -- what do you call it?"  
> Me: "A wheel chair?"  
> Shelly: "Yeah, or else my Rollator. I wonder if I should have applied for the early ballot."  
> Me: "Mail in voting?"  
> Shelly: "Yeah. But I wanted to vote at my new polling place. They moved us this year."  
> *later, after we've gone over that she needs a non-expired ID with her name, address, and picture on it; I'm concerned she might not have a driver's license or a passport, but she seems ok. Her hearing is low, but we're making ourselves understood.*  
> Shelly: "I sure will be glad to get rid of Trump."  
> Me: "Me too."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made 69 calls into North Carolina today, for a total of 544 calls so far. For the other people phone banking -- if you are open to sharing your number of calls/texts/postcards (either total, per week, per day) and if my style of writing is your jam, let me know what kind of fic you'd like in the comments or on tumblr (http://jocarthage.tumblr.com) and I'll try to write you a one-shot!

Michael spent Sunday working in his lab, a quiet part of his brain mulling over how he wanted to plant the corn: rows or circles, circles or rows. He ended-up deciding on circles, so he could brace them against each other. Rows would have worked fine if he'd had a whole field to work with, but since all he had was the little patch of land behind the junkyard — well, not so little now the garden was in its 2nd month, but it was no 40 acres — so he needed to use it the best he could.

Dawn on Monday found him kneeling as the sun rose behind him, poking his finger into the soil and dropping in one dark blue kernel, thinking about how growing things can hold each other up, how weight can change their shapes, and how much joy can come from a little work.

As soon as the corn and the sunflowers had a head start, maybe in two weeks, he’d plant the beans and the squash. That way the twining vines would have something sturdy to climb on without toppling the stalks when they were vulnerable. It could warp a plant, having too much weight put on it too young; even after the weight was removed, it could take a long while for it to grow as strong as it would have if it had just been left to grow on its own, or given some kind of support until it could bear its own future.

Michael had no idea what the food or agriculture of his home planet was, but he liked the chance to help growing things thrive in harsh conditions, the way his mother had. The way he had.

As he smoothed dirt over the planting holes, he heard the crunch of boots behind him and ducked his head down.

He knew who it was; Alex had started to bring coffee by every day on his way to the base a few months ago, drinking it with Michael in the morning quiet before the customers began to arrive.

When he’d first done it, Michael’s shoulders hadn’t gotten lower than his ears the whole time he'd been there, so dead certain he’d been this was The Breakup Speech. The time when Alex would get himself together enough to tell Michael once and for all they would never be a ‘them.’ Michael had answered every question in grunts, trying desperately, as hard as he could, to speed-run constructing the kinds of protections around his heart that would allow him to survive this fine, awful, always-awaited pruning of their relationship.

But it hadn’t been that.

And Alex had come by the next day, and the next. Every day, he’d come and sit with Michael, talking about nothing, so much nothing that Michael started to see the patterns in it, the little waves and currents that make up a life. The way he tensed up before his meetings with his bosses, the way he grinned when he talked about one of his direct reports fixing a problem before he had to. The ways he slipped in bits and pieces about what it was like handling the estate.

Every morning, they’d finish the visit by walking around the growing garden, Michael pointing out the new curlicue on a vine; the little bit the watermelon had grown since Alex had last seen it; the funny beetle; the disturbed lizard.

It felt — childish. Wrong, in a way, too light, too silly, to care so much for living things when so much was wrong in the world.

But here, kneeling in the rich earth, fingers not just dirty with other people’s oil but with his own good soil, Michael felt _good._ He felt _connected_ in a way he couldn’t ever remember feeling.

“Morning,” Alex said, easing himself to sit on the log-bench Michael had made for him after the first time he’d watched him struggle to get up on a morning when the ground had been cool enough — and they’d sat together long enough — for Alex’s leg to stiffen.

"Morning," Michael said, sitting back on the unplanted earth, smiling up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Top quote from today's phone banking:  
> \- Sarah's Mom-in-Law: "We've got our signs out -- if they burn up our yard, I'll call you back." (Note: she was teasing, the dialer doesn't share volunteers' numbers with voters)
> 
> I talked to someone whose situation was so upsetting I wasn't able to write down her name or transcribe any quotes. TW for potential domestic violence. She said she supports Biden for President but her husband doesn't. She's had her absentee ballot for a week but hasn't sent it because he's started calling her a "communist" and she "doesn't want to start something." She's afraid to ask him to sign the back of her ballot as a witness (which is a requirement for mail-in voting in North Carolina). She's 78 and in ill-health and was trying to think if there was anyone she knew who she could ask to witness her ballot from a safe distance, but she couldn't think of anyone. She was going to try to go down to the early voting location. I suggested she bring her absentee ballot and see if one of the volunteers could witness it and I gave her the North Carolina Voter Hotline number to check to make sure that's alright (833-868-3462). I called them after my phone banking was over and the very nice woman on the other end of the line said if I got that question again, I can suggest she ask her mail carrier, or anyone she sees near the voting location (though not a poll worker, since they can't).
> 
> Since I had the voter hotline worker's time, I asked her the most common questions I'm getting from voters:  
> \- Q: "I registered absentee but want to vote early now. Can I and what do I do with my old ballot?" A: "Throw away the absentee ballot (you do not have to bring it with you) and vote early. If you're thinking of dropping off your absentee ballot at an early voting place, since you're going to have to wait in line anyway, you might as well vote early."  
> \- Q: "When will I stop getting calls?" A: In North Carolina, unlike in California, it does not seem like there's a set system for updating the lists that campaigns work from to remove people who've already voted. (That might explain why, of the 16 democrats I talked to, 11 had already voted.)  
> \- Q: "Some people with mobility challenges are concerned the early voting sites are inaccessible. How can they confirm they are accessible?" A: "Every polling place should have drive-in voting and they can call us and we'll call around to check."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made 83 calls into North Carolina today, for a total of 627 calls so far. For the other people phone banking -- if you are open to sharing your number of calls/texts/postcards (either total, per week, per day) and if my style of writing is your jam, let me know what kind of fic you'd like in the comments or on tumblr (http://jocarthage.tumblr.com) and I'll try to write you a one-shot!
> 
> There's a brief mention of both 2x6 in a positive light and the awful behavior both Alex and Michael engaged in (mostly Alex tho tbh) in the bunker, so if you don't want to touch on those maybe skip.

Alex returned his smile, only half-hiding it behind his red travel mug. He settled a little more easily on the log-bench.

"Planting something new?"

Michael nodded: "I got a pack of Diné Blue Corn." Michael glanced around to check they were alone, then floated a bag of multi-colored gravel over from his workbench, pulling open the top with his TK. He tilted it and let it begin to pour itself over the bare soil, burying it an inch deep.

"Greg said he walked you through what is and isn't ok when it comes to borrowing cultural objects and traditions?"

"I wanted to be sure; the folks who run the nursery were gringas, so I wanted to double-check."

Alex took a sip of his coffee, gesturing to the slow motions of the gravel bag: "You're using lithic mulch?"

Michael felt a smile rise on his face: "Yeah, I was reading a book about Pueblo agricultural science and it was one of the ways they keep water in the soil."

Alex's voice was a little far off, a little memory-filled: "A lot of the traditions were shared between different peoples." He took a breath: "There's only so many ways to farm a desert. After being here for so long, people have it down to a science. I've been reading too. The more I talk with Greg, the more I realize how much I missed, not having more time with Mom in the house. Time I have now, because of --" and he waved a little and Michael couldn't entirely read his tone.

Before, Michael might not have dared to press. But now, he wanted to try: "Because?"

The sound of settling stones underlaid the morning quiet. When Michael glanced up, Alex was clenching his jaw, looking down, working his hands around and around the travel mug.

Michael prompted: "You wouldn't have had time to reconnect because -- you were planning on leaving Roswell at the end of your contract, if Project Shepherd hadn't gotten in the way?" 

Alex's head shot up, eyes wide: "No. _No_ , Michael. I was planning on staying. Having time to reconnect because of _you._ " He rifled his hand through his hair. "I had this whole plan: one, come back; two, get the leverage I needed over Dad; three, once we were free, look you up, look my Mom's family up. Reconnect with all of it, found family and lost family. Everyone in between. That's why I didn't come by when I first got back, I though," and his voice flattened a little, self-reproach thick, "I thought I was playing the long game. That I could find a way to fix it so he couldn't hurt either of us ever again. That I could come back to you at the right time with a clean slate."

"Oh," Michael said, voice quiet. "And then you saw me at Foster's Ranch."

Alex huffed a breath. "And then I saw you at Foster's Ranch. Then the reunion, then Foster's ranch again, the amazing time in the junkyard, then I was scared and a prick and it was over. Then, Caulfield." He let it hang between them, voice hushed: "I couldn't see how we would ever have a slate again. At the funeral, I didn't know how to reach you, to reach the part of me that you wanted to talk to, to be with." He took a shaky breath. "And then you and Maria were good together and I was good with Forrest and it was -- waiting. Again. And then I got swept-up in my Dad's bullshit, he just completely rolled me, and I was awful to you in the bunker and you were a jerk too and then things were moving so fast and -- yeah." He resettled his shoulders. "So, after the bombs, I decided that since I couldn't seem to pick the right time, I figured I'd go for quantity over quality." He gestured to their twin coffee cups.

"I wouldn't say these mornings have been low-quality," Michael managed, soothing his knuckles over the gravel, making a new pattern. "I might go as far as to say they're the best part of my days." He could barely breathe past his galloping heart. "Planting things I knew you'd like, knew you'd stay here to see grow? That's been the best part of my year, Alex."

Michael's vision was shimmering a little: "Maybe it's not 'the right time,' and like you said that morning after we were all together, I don't think we'll just passively end-up together," and he rushed to finish the thought before Alex got the wrong idea and couldn't hear the rest: "But, Alex, I think if we _choose_ to be together, we can. We can grow together, do it right this time."

Alex slipped to the earth beside him, wrapping his arms around Michael. Michael held him close, feeling the dark-leaved and fruited garden growing around them and the love between them, resting warm as a sunrise across their shoulders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Top quote from today's phone banking:  
> \- Marcellus's Mom: "We already did it, baby, we already voted." (This was delightful to hear, but I have a rule I don't mark a voter as having voted unless I hear it from their own lips. There's a lot of secret democratic women in conservative areas whose husbands are convinced they are dutiful Republicans and who will swear up-down-and-right that their wives would never vote for a democrat; this is often false)


End file.
